Today Oracle announced the availability of the first of two planned second-generation Cloud regions in the UAE. The addition of the Dubai Cloud region marks the availability of 26 Oracle Cloud Regions worldwide. The opening is part of Oracle’s aggressive plan to have 36 Cloud regions by July 2021. Located in Dubai, the new Cloud region will offer all Oracle Cloud services, including Oracle Autonomous Database and Oracle Cloud Applications.

“The contribution of digital economy to the UAE’s GDP stood at 4.3 per cent in 2019, and His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has set a target to double this contribution by enhancing the country’s digital readiness. Oracle’s second-generation cloud region in Dubai will help accelerate the digital transformation initiatives of organizations across the UAE’ government entities, large enterprise and SMEs, thus directly supporting the country’s economic vision,” said Abdul Rahman Al Thehaiban, senior vice president – Technology, MEA & CEE, Oracle.

 

Leading UAE Organisations Choose Oracle Cloud to drive major transformation

DP World is a world leader in global supply chain solutions; specialising in cargo logistics, port terminal operations, maritime services, free zones and more.

Mike Bhaskaran, Chief Operating Officer - Logistics and Technology, DP World says:

“DP World is helping economies grow and nations prosper, by redefining the future of global trade. We are focused on developing highly efficient, agile and cost effective, secure logistics operations. Our goal is to facilitate the movement of goods around the world at the click of a button.

Accelerating smart trade in this way requires comprehensive digital transformation and automation of core business processes. Oracle Cloud Applications and Cloud Infrastructure platform are playing a vital role in DP World’s industry defining digital initiatives. The launch of Oracle’s second-generation cloud region in the UAE will further support our efforts.”

DAMAC is the premier luxury property developer in Dubai with a portfolio of iconic residential, commercial and leisure properties.

“Across our multi-cloud environments, we use Oracle Cloud as our enterprise transformation platform. We run workloads across enterprise apps, APIs and services that power both internal and customer facing apps across the group. The new UAE Data Centre region should help us accelerate this journey further” says Binoo Joseph, Chief Information Officer, DAMAC Group

Tahaluf Al Emarat is UAE’s leading IT company that provides advanced software solutions for the public sector.

"At Tahaluf, we are focused on providing advanced and highly secure software solutions and applications that leverage emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, IoT and Big Data. Oracle’s second-generation cloud infrastructure, which offers a unique autonomous database is the right platform for us to build secure and innovative applications for our customers”, said Yahia Alhami, CEO, Tahaluf Al Emarat.

 

Telecom Partner for the UAE Cloud Region

Etisalat, one of the leading telecommunication operators in emerging markets, is the telecom partner for the Oracle Cloud region in Dubai.

“With this strategic announcement, Etisalat will be part of Oracle’s growth path on bringing the next generation of cloud to the region. During this unprecedented period, global markets are looking at enhancing digital services availability and adding new capacities for businesses and the entire community. The partnership with Oracle further complements the existing capabilities of Etisalat which brings flexibility and availability for the private and public sector through the deployment of Oracle’s next generation of cloud services,” said Salvador Anglada, Group Chief Business Officer, Etisalat.

 

Analyst Commentary

“UAE-based organizations are prioritizing digital transformation to navigate the current crisis as well as to compete and thrive during the recovery phase. In a survey of UAE CIOs from mid and large organizations conducted by IDC in the 2nd quarter of this year, 57% of the respondents said they were accelerating digital transformation in response to new customer and operational needs. Cloud is increasingly being viewed as the technology platform that can provide the agility, capacity and innovation capability that is required to accelerate digital transformation” said Jyoti Lalchandani, group vice president and regional managing director, Middle East, Turkey and Africa, IDC.

“We have witnessed a rapid increase in cloud adoption and usage over the past few months across all key industries. The investment by global cloud providers in in-country datacenters will continue to alleviate concerns of data residency and security among organizations in sectors such as the public sector, banking and others. On the back of these demand and supply-side drivers, we expect spending on public cloud in the UAE to surpass $430 M this year and $1B by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 25% over the 5-year period from 2019-2024,” added Jyoti.

 

Adding Second Sites in Countries to Meet Customer Requirements

Oracle has a unique dual region strategy that enables customers to deploy resilient applications in multiple geographies for disaster recovery and compliance requirements—without having sensitive data leave the country. Customers that want to run critical systems of record in the cloud need fully independent cloud regions for disaster recovery purposes with multiple sites in the same country to meet data residency requirements.

 

Secure Cloud Infrastructure

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is a second-generation security platform, conceived and architected on security-first design principles. Innovations like isolated network virtualization and pristine physical host deployment, enable customer isolation from other cloud tenants and from Oracle personnel as well as reduced risk from advanced persistent threats.

Oracle Cloud is designed to provide enterprise customers with security, rock-solid reliability, and powerful management capabilities for large and complex deployments—all while beating industry performance and pricing standards.

 

Oracle’s Continued Commitment to the UAE

Oracle has been present in the United Arab Emirates for more than three decades. This long-term commitment from Oracle has translated into massive investments to help organizations of all sizes, in public and private sectors, achieve strategic objectives with digital transformation.

Oracle has established a state of the art digital hub in Dubai, that is focused on driving cloud adoption across the country’s mid-sized businesses. More than 500 cloud sales professionals are dedicated to supporting the digital transformation initiatives of mid-sized businesses in the UAE.

In line with the UAE’s Strategy for Artificial Intelligence, Oracle has also established a first of its kind innovation hub in Dubai to accelerate the implementation of Artificial Intelligence in the UAE. Oracle has also initiated a collaboration with UAE’s Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) to help prepare 1000 students for the digital economy by training them in emerging technologies including Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning.

Oracle opened eight Cloud Regions in 2020 and currently operates 26 regions globally - 20 commercial and six government and multiple dedicated regions for U.S. intelligence services - the fastest expansion by any major cloud provider. To help customers build true business continuity and disaster protection while meeting in-country data residence requirements, Oracle plans to establish at least two regions in almost every country where it operates. The U.S., Canada, E.U., South Korea, Japan, India and Australia already have two Cloud Regions. Upcoming Cloud Regions include second regions in the U.K., Brazil, U.A.E, and Saudi Arabia, additional E.U. regions in Italy, Sweden, and France; as well as new regions in Chile, Singapore, South Africa, and Israel.

Currently available Oracle Cloud Regions include:

• Asia Pacific: Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Chuncheon, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Sydney, Melbourne
• Americas: San Jose, Phoenix, Ashburn, Toronto, Montreal, São Paolo
• Europe: Frankfurt, London, Zürich, Amsterdam
• Middle East: Jeddah, Dubai
• Government: two general U.S. Government regions, U.S. National Security regions, three U.S. Department of Defense specific Government regions, one in the United Kingdom